To the delight of civil libertarians and libertarians alike, the Canadian courts have been leading the world in dealing with conflicts between privacy principles and morality legislation. I am serving as an expert in the review of Canadian polygamy laws in British Columbia. In the meantime, the Ontario Superior Court may allow three prostitution laws to die this Saturday.
In September, the Court struck down the laws. The federal government is charging that this is nothing short of a “social experiment unprecedented in this country.” However, it is also a frank acknowledgment that consenting adults came engage in sex for money as a consensual choice. Currently, an individual can have sex with any number of partners but can be arrested if they accept anything of value in exchange for sex. They can receive gifts as part of a “relationship” no matter how fleeting but not as payment.
The Court previously noted that criminal laws force prostitutes in the shadows where they are easy prey for abuse and even homicides. Once legal, protections and regulations can apply to the world’s oldest profession. With the demise of the laws, street walking will be legal.
Source: Star
Jonathan Turley
Are you talking about me and why I was incarcerated? That is supposed to be a matter of public record. Why don’t you see if you can find out.
You should be a lot more careful about what you represent about me in the form of anonymous postings.
1.) There was no named “prosecutor”. Insurance lawyers filed written documents requesting contempt hearings and made oral statements in civil hearings. On the one occasion when a government prosecutor showed up, without filing a notice of appearance, he said that the “government is not involved”. That was in the D of Western Wisconsin and his name was Robert Anderson. The U.S. Attorney in Colorado, where I was also detained, filed a response to my FOIA request for records stating that they were not involved in the prosecution of Kay Sieverding. That is on PACER. see for instance DDC 09-0562 document 7-2 or spend $5 and download the exhibits to the “unopposed opening brief” in 10-5149. Click on the box in PACER and you will see them as exhibits. There are over 500 pages of exhibits there.
2.) I had long arm jurisdiction in DDC based on a.) ABA office in D.C. and the ABA in house counsel writing a letter to former judge Nottingham requesting he stay summary judgment proceedings. b.) Mutual Insurance of Bermuda directed or influenced the litigation strategy w Nottingham that resulted in a dismissal without a memorandum opinion. They published on-line that there CEO, since inception, was a D.C. Attorney. The verified attorney bills also named an associate as being involved in strategy who at the time was working in D.C. for the law firm whose partner was the CEO of Mutual Insurance.
We are talking contempt proceedings by federal judges of the United States. It is irrelevant what some judges have done some places some time. Federal judges are bound by federal statutes and those were not followed when I was imprisoned.
@Katz: Exactly.
@Kay:
A) What are ‘certain cognitive disabilities’ ? A lack of math skills? Or is this just your more politically correct way of saying prostitutes must be retarded?
The call girl I knew had no cognitive disabilities I could detect or any physical disability I could detect. The prostitutes I have seen on TV do not either. That is my evidence.
B) On broken bones: So what? Rodeo clowns have far more broken bones than any other occupation. Other activities that produce more than average broken bones are skiing, mountain climbing, and stunt man (or woman). Risking injury on the job is not a reason to outlaw prostitution.
C) I do not accept reducing prostitution as a legitimate goal of the law; just like I don’t accept reducing the number of real estate agents as a legitimate goal of the law.
D) It depends on how you define ‘standard of living.’ What if they earn exactly the same income working two hours a week instead of forty? What they buy with the same pay in food, clothing, shelter, etc may be exactly the same, but they have twice the free time to do something else. More importantly it should be obvious. Minimum wage produces take-home pay of about $6 an hour. Canadian hookers earn an average of $125 a trick. There is your evidence.
E) Why is saving money important? Most minimum wage employees are not successful at saving money either; my father worked 12-14 hours a day for thirty-five years (legally) and died without saving a dime (except equity in a house and a paid for car). Prostitutes probably spend the money they earn like anybody else, so what?
Once again, their negative life outcomes are none of your business, they are not children, they are not retarded, and your ideas about why prostitution should be illegal are completely inconsistent; if we outlawed these things (like risking one’s health for money) society would fall apart; we’d have no cops or firemen or soldiers, no miners, no foundry workers or bridge or dam builders or high rise constructions. All physically dangerous professions that would not be done if they were not paid.
Well LK,
The proof is in the puddin on that one….I am only sayin….she has gone the extreme in not answering why she was incarcerated except for some half baked reasoning….then when more info is gained…it appears that she was with out good reason to keep a suit in a court without proper jurisdiction was sanction and apparently refused to pay….then the judge held her in contempt….
Apparently, she does not understand frivolous lawsuit or trying to forced a court to assume Jurisdiction when it does not have it….then complains about the Prosecutor not responding…FYI, it may have changed but a party does not have to file any responsive pleading if the matter of jurisdiction is in question….but call me half baked or half witted…but never color me purple….
@AY: Typos aren’t always slipped fingers, they can be evidence of a lack of education. I find it hard to believe that after six years of college (about the minimum to earn a graduate degree with standard semester hours) a person would still capitalize the word ‘College’ and write the phrase ‘well know College’.
Plus that whole story is implausible; $250K a year? $5000 a week? After three kids, and with a rich husband that is an officer of a Fortune 100 company and is presumably blindly supportive of his wife and mother of three risking her life and his professional reputation blowing johns in a van or something.
Typos irritate me (even my own) but typos aside, give me a break, somebody invented a too-obvious screen name and wrote an incoherent fairy tale. Some aspiring fiction writer with no grasp of plausible human psychology. That’s my guess.
Tony’s observation in context was correct regarding the “typos”. The characterization of it being only about typos is incorrect, he included grammatical errors. That also struck me as I read the posting. The writer of that posting seemed to have a sloppy grasp of the language for someone with an advanced degree.
I think the posting is bogus for other reasons. Maybe “she” doesn’t post to sites often, or was tired or ?. I make my share of grammatical errors and typos so I don’t get too exercised abut it in others. As I said though, I think it’s a bogus posting and the grammar is the least reason why, but it and syntax are there as a consideration.
I am though amused that you take someone to task and the straw that breaks the camels back is their commenting (unfavorably) on another posters grammar but you then feel free to call Kay a “half-witted flake”. Just say’n.
Do you have any evidence that disproves these hypotheses?
Hypothesis A.) Hearing impairments and/ or certain cognitive disabilities are statistically correlated with a woman to becoming a prostitute.
Hypothesis B.) Licensed prostitutes are less likely to have broken bones than unlicensed prostitutes.
Hypothesis C.) When prostitution is licensed in a geographic area, there is less illegal prostitution in the same region.
Hypothesis D.) Licensed prostitutes have a higher standard of living than minimum wage workers.
Hypothesis E.) Licensed prostitutes are successful at saving money.
eh,
as always a pleasure to see you postin…..
LK.
Thank you for your comment…Just sayin’…sure…just say it…other than engaging the services of the same…no connection…I do take umbrage of the fools that take a moral superior position especially when it comes to “Typo’s” but hey what am I saying…life is full of opportunities to learn something new and patience is one of them…then again acceptance maybe another…but really what do I know….I am still learning…
I don’t think LK, I would of commented on what was said unless and until the typo remark was made….then again….I didn’t do so good with acceptance….or in that case patience….just sayin…
You on the other hand apparently are defending an unwarranted ad hominem attack on the educational assertions of another poster is both improper and unwarranted….just sayin…but then again…is anyone on her really who they say they are? Only your conscience knows the truth and that too can be dysfunctional…btw a number of folks that I know that are associated with institutions of higher learning are dysfunctional as humans….they have forgot how to interact with folks….just sayin…
Anonymously Yours: “Tony, Then back up to so called claims with facts? Oh and by the way, if you ever make a typo expect many on this Blawg, well to come down on you and your superior position. …. Neither of you support any claim with any real evidence or support it with one cite….. … Cast no stones and break no windows….You have done both today…”
—–
?Que’
He’s not writing a brief, he’s making an ad hominem argument and he has made a consistently well reasoned, logical, detailed argument. It doesn’t look like a superior attitude, it looks like something he’s given some thought to. For it to be characterized (as some have) as self serving regarding a personal interest in prostitution is no more than sour grapes. He hasn’t cast stones or broken anything while others have been less than reciprocal in that matter.
And the happy hooker does sound like a fake, a particularly male projection in fact; mean girls and wives that won’t screw their husbands made me do it, wah, wah, wah…. know anything about her, anything yo want to tell us, since you take umbrage to Tony reaching that conclusion? An odd visitor to champion and defend if there’s no personal connection. Just sayn’.
” I think its exciting that Ontario did not legalize prostitution as the article suggested they would. ” Kay
@ Kay,
You may wish to re-read the article that I posted. The provincial Gov’t has NOT chosen to leave the prostitution laws as is. In fact the court ruled to essentially remand the case to April 2011. Part of the reason for this decision was to allow people in the province to ” get used to ” the idea. It is felt, by most people that I have talked with that the de-criminalization will become reality.
@Kay: P.S. That is a ridiculous dissertation topic; I have been to many a dissertation defense and that would be laughed out of the room. The standard of quality for a dissertation is that it must be an original contribution to the field, this would not be even close. Typically a dissertation is judged by whether the candidate has published in peer-reviewed journals, preferably of some rank (we rank journals by their influence, measured by how often papers appearing in that journal get cited).
You couldn’t publish a paper on this. Plus, statistics won’t PROVE anything, as I say and you ignore time and again.
@Kay: You have no testable hypothesis. The fact that prostitution is illegal means that it is going to be run by criminals, by definition. Because criminals do not play by any rules, the criminal underground is survival-of-the-fittest landscape where the smartest and most ruthless sociopaths rise to the top. You cannot distinguish violence that is the RESULT of prostitution being illegal from violence inherent to prostitution, per se.
So if you find violence or damage, it proves NOTHING in terms of whether prostitution should be outlawed, because it could just as easily be attributed TO prostitution being outlawed and serve as evidence prostitution should be legalized, so it wouldn’t be run by sociopaths!
You have no control; unless you go to countries where prostitution literally does not exist. Pick a devout Islamic country, and you will find MORE oppression and sexual slavery and subjugation of women. It may be slavery to one man, but it is slavery nonetheless; sex on command with a bloody beating (or even execution) for refusal. A prostitute is more free than an Islamic wife in Pakistan.
You just want to oppress women, and you want to do it with science you don’t understand so you can dress it up as ‘official’.
If you are worried about women being pressured into prostitution by force, legalize prostitution. The new volunteers that won’t do it now because it is illegal will increase the supply of prostitutes; and legalization will lead to openly competitive brothels or even co-op brothels owned and run by the prostitutes themselves with legally hired security and legal access to attorneys, police protection and more.
The more strictly you can outlaw prostitution the more you will oppress the women that will do it no matter what; the stiffer you make the penalties the meaner and tougher her bosses become and the less money she makes and the more abuse she takes. Your actions will have the exact opposite effect of what you claim to desire.
If there is any chance of stopping violence in prostitution, it is legalizing it and accepting it as a profession some women will choose to engage in of their own free will. And they will. Why they do that is none of your business or mine; they probably do it for the money. So what? Cops put their lives on the line for money, and you don’t assume cops must be brain-damaged or addicts.
Let’s try to write small hypotheses that can actually be tested and proved.
In the case of prostitutes with hearing loss or other significant impairments there are probably records as to the onset of the problems before or after prostitution.
So a hypothesis could be that hearing impairments or certain cognitive disabilities are statistically correlated with a woman to becoming a prostitute.
That is probably a doable dissertation topic. In fact, maybe such a study has already been completed somewhere.
Another hypothesis is that licensed prostitutes are less likely to have broken bones than unlicensed prostitutes.
That might also be provable thru data mining comparing the work and medical records of licensed prostitutes in Nevada (and where else ????) with jail medical records of women arrested on prostitution charges. You’re assuming that it is true but it might not be. In other words, there might or might not be a big difference in how often a customer hits a prostitute. And any broken bone should be counted no matter what the stated cause was in order to cover breaks that might be inflicted by parties pressuring a woman to engage in prostitution.
@Kay: Right, because in your view prostitutes must be fundamentally damaged, by having been hit in the head or they grew up needing a social worker or had medical problems. So you are certain you will find some supporting evidence for that, and that will prove … Nothing.
Your insistence that people that disagree with your morals must be damaged, stupid, sick, or psychologically impaired by their upbringing is ridiculous. Also you aren’t going about the statistics correctly in the first place. Perhaps prostitutes ARE more likely to have been beat up and that caused hearing problems, BUT that might be because moralists have criminalized prostitution, so prostitution rings are run by abusive criminals instead of professional legitimate business managers that comply with OSHA and the law.
Perhaps prostitutes do have difficulty getting or keeping regular jobs. So what? Should they then be unemployed and live in poverty? If prostitution is the niche they found that earns them a living, and they engage in it voluntarily, what business is it of yours *why* they do that? Some guys sleep with a ton of girls because they like the variety; why aren’t you “studying” them to see if they are brain-damaged or come from broken homes? Some girls drink to excess every Friday and wake up with a new guy every Saturday; why aren’t you studying them to see if they come from a broken home?
Correlations only tell you the state of two things are related, that knowing the state of one lets you guess the state of the other with something better than chance alone. Rain after a dry spell and car accidents are correlated, you cannot just say that car accidents cause rain. But super bowl outcomes and stock market movements are also (famously) highly correlated, and nobody thinks one causes the other. You seem to preferentially choose your direction of causation based on what you want to prove (that prostitutes are brain damaged or mentally or physically deficient), when it could just as easily be that the condition of the prostitute is a result of criminalization, not their willing choice of profession — Which I still believe was their choice to make, not yours.
With SPSS, one does what they call “cross tabs” — cross tabulate the data categories to look for correlations.
It might be possible in a statistical study of prostitution to look inside medical records and add data from those records in.
A hypothesis might be that prostitutes are more likely than the general population with the same demographic to have hearing problems both because they might have been hit in the head and because hearing problems make other forms of employment more difficult to get.
I would hope that a medical assessment would find hearing problems, or there might be guard notes too. Maybe there will be an associated social worker file or something from their childhood medical and school records.
@AY: Oops. Sorry AY, I was calling you AM.
I didn’t think it was a diatribe on Hookers; the name was obviously selected for this particular discussion, and the story sounds implausible to me. I was going to ignore it, but *somebody* seemed to be taking it seriously, so I said something.
Given the reality of the social stigma of prostitution as a profession in the USA (which I think is undeserved) I suspect most prostitutes have more compelling motivations than not being liked at work.
Damn Tony an Kay both doing the same thing but for different interest and reasons…..Kay, you are welcome…..Tony C….my condolences…you have lost the key to reality…part of the institution is the problem in the Ivory tower…Publishing to advance….not academic scholar….part of the graft of the government… a number of folks want to do away with federal funding…if they did where would you not be working…Oh yeah the Ironies of the Ivory Tower….Don’t publish, not tenured…You’re out of a job….Have you ever worked in the real world? What you list is most Tax Payer Funded sources….must be nice….I know a number of other folks that have not had real jobs either….then there was that nontenured soon to be out of work female professor in Alabama…whats her name Boom Boom…Cap em and strap em…..did you and Kay know her? She seemed to think that folks were doing her wrong….et tu?
Another data mine for prostitution studies is JOHN ARRESTS in foreign countries.
@Annie
your comment was both funny and plausible
@AYou
Still no rule 9 b accusations of fraud w specificity from you.
What I know is somethings about doing research. And I have used SPSS, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, and think it would be a great tool to study prostitution policies.
@AM: If you are asking me whether my education is lost, I don’t think so. I am an active research scientist at an accredited university, and because I want to be and they want me here, not because I need to be. I am regularly publishing, in an applied science where things must actually work as advertised, in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. I wouldn’t be where I am (both professionally and financially) without my education, so I’d say it’s working out pretty well so far.
Feel free to take pride, your taxes paid for the buildings and salaries of my teachers and professors, and funded about a third of my professional career working as a consultant for DoD and other federal and state agencies, not to mention the GI Bill I used — But I feel like I earned that last one, by *voluntarily* risking my life as an enlisted grunt in the military in order to get it.